Protectionist Conservatives

The Protectionist Conservatives were a faction of the Conservative Party which existed from 1846 to 1859, led by Edward Smith-Stanley and Benjamin Disraeli. The Protectionists emerged as the opponents of the pro-free trade "Peelites" under Robert Peel, and they overthrew Peel's ministry in 1846. Smith-Stanley had general command over the entire Protectionist party, both MPs and peers, and the hard core of around seventy Protectionist MPs voted against the Irish Coercion Bill during the Irish Potato Famine, forcing Peel's resignation. Smith-Stanley sought to reconstruct the Conservative Party of the 1830s, but he failed to unite the opposing wings of his party; some party members objected to the admission of Jews to the House of Commons, which was championed by former Whigs (who supported religious tolerance) in the Conservative Party. In 1847, Smith-Stanley generally succeeded in avoiding an electoral clash between the Protectionists and Peelites, although there were ten cases of Peelites fighting Protectionists, seven of wihch were won by the Peelites and three by the latter. In the 1847, 1852, and 1857 elections, the Conservative Party had divided into Conservatives, Protectionists, and Liberal-Conservatives (Peelites), and the Peelites won 89 seats in 1847, while the Protectionists won 243 seats (190 in England, 12 in Wales, 8 in Scotland, and 33 in Ireland).

By 1847, the future of the Conservative Party lay with Stanley's followers and not with the Peelites, who would go on to form the Liberal Party in 1859. More than half of the Protectionists' members sat for county seats, concentrated largely in the center and East Anglia with pockets of support in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Westmorland, and Sussex; they had a majority of seats (county and borough) in only 14 of 41 English counties, 83 seats out of a possible 126 (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Suffolk, Sussex, Westmorland, and Worcestershire); they tied with their opponents with 11/22 seats in Bedfordshire, Essex, and Northamptonshire. The Conservative strength was largely based on the areas where traditional rural influences prevailed, and it was weakest where new industrialism was dominant. Ireland was unreliable to the Tories, while Scotland was hostile and Wales was slipping away. To hold their ground in the south and center of England (the rural areas) and make gains in the north (the industrializing region) and in the big cities and suburbs (such as London and the new expanding England), the Tories found themselves troubled. After 1846, the Whigs - despite lacking public support - were the only possibile ruling party, as the Peelites were out of office and the Protecitonists were regarded as unfit to rule.

The Protectionists floated the idea of rebaptizing themselves as the "Country Party" (nostalgic of the 18th century), as the word "Conservative" was by now associated with Peel. In 1847, 150 MPs had been returned under the description "Protectionist". However, rather than adopt the new name "Protectionist or Country Party", the Tories decided to retain the name "Conservative Party" so as to not exlude traditional Tory voters. By 1852, the Protectionists had dropped protection, but they never dropped the view that the landed interest was entitled to special reliefs in taxation in return for the special duties and burdens implemented upon them. In 1852, 1857, 1859, and 1865, the Conservatives were the biggest homogenous party, but they never did well enough to secure a clear majority. In 1857 and 1859, Disraeli went against Stanley (now Earl Derby) by successfully appealing to Irish Catholic voters; he saw Catholicism as a conservative bulwark against liberalism and progress. However, Derby undid these gains at the 1865 election by comparing Catholics to rabid dogs, and he upheld the Irish Conservative Party's allegiance to the Church of Ireland and to the Protestant elite. Lord Palmerston was able to keep the Conservatives together from 1855 to 1865 by working with the Radicals and pursuing a liberal foreign policy; he was an ex-Tory (who later joined the Whigs) who supported the popular side of the Great Reform Act and the Corn Laws, supported the Radicals' jingoism, advocated for a liberal foreign policy, was cautious over institutional changes, ably managed his party, and was the darling of the press.

However, the Tories had been on the wrong side of the Corn Laws debate, losing them the support of "small-c conservatives" who placed their faith in the Conservatives' rivals. At the disastrous 1865 general election, which returned a Liberal Party majority of 60 seats, the Conservatives made slight gains in Lancashire, where a working-class, Protestant, and anti-Irish conservatism made way due to the influence of edifying literature. However, the Conservatives lost in the "Celtic fringe", winning only 4 seats in Wales, 3 in Scotland, and 7 in Ireland. In 1859, with the Peelites' merger into the Liberal Party, the Protectionists became the new "Conservative Party".